There’s something quietly wonderful about the word “vinting.” Ask a medieval vintner what they were doing and they would have told you they were vinting — making wine. Ask a twenty-three-year-old photographing a blazer against a white wall in 2026 and they’ll give you the same answer.
Same word. Fourteen centuries apart. Different product entirely.
The Ancient Definition Nobody Knows About
Here’s a fact that tends to delight people: vinting is already in the dictionary. It has been for some time. Merriam-Webster defines vint as “to make (wine) from fruit.” Collins carries it too. The word is a back-formation from vintage, which traces back to Old French vendange (the grape harvest), which itself comes from Latin vindemia — vinum (wine) plus demere (to remove or take).
A vintner — one who makes or sells wine — shares the same root and has been in English since the 14th century.
Latin vinum (wine) → Latin vindemia (grape harvest) → Old French vendange → Middle English vintage → back-formation vint → present participle vinting
The same root gives us: wine, vine, vineyard, vintage, vintner... and now, apparently, a Lithuanian secondhand marketplace and 17 million UK users selling old jumpers.
Somewhere, a Latin scholar is either delighted or appalled. Possibly both.
The Modern Definition Everyone Is Using
In 2024, Vinted had over 17 million UK users — roughly one in four adults. It became the UK’s third largest fashion retailer, behind only Primark and Next. When that many people are doing something that often, the language finds a way to describe it economically.
“I’m going to list some items on the Vinted platform” is nine words. “I’m vinting” is two. Language, like charity shopping, rewards efficiency.
The modern sense of vinting follows a well-documented linguistic phenomenon called anthimeria — or, less technically, brand verbification. When a brand becomes the dominant term for an activity, speakers convert it into a verb:
| Brand | Verb | Now in dictionaries? |
|---|---|---|
| To google | Yes (Oxford, Merriam-Webster) | |
| Hoover | To hoover | Yes (Oxford, Collins) |
| To WhatsApp | Yes (Oxford, 2018) | |
| FedEx | To FedEx | Yes (Merriam-Webster) |
| Uber | To Uber | Yes (Oxford, Collins) |
| Vinted | To vint / vinting | Pending — watch this space |
The “selling on Vinted” sense of vinting has not yet been formally added to any major dictionary — but given the platform’s scale, it feels like a matter of when, not if.
How the Word Spread
TikTok deserves most of the credit. The “charity shop flip” video is its own genre: someone finds a £3 dress at Oxfam, lists it on Vinted for £35, and films the whole process. The #vinted hashtag has accumulated billions of views. Creators calling themselves “vinting addicts” built audiences in the hundreds of thousands. By 2022–23, the word had enough cultural velocity that it no longer needed explaining. You either knew what vinting was, or you were about to find out.
The conditions were unusually good for rapid spread:
Cost of living
When everything got more expensive, selling unwanted items looked considerably more attractive. For many households, vinting became a genuine income supplement — not life-changing, but real. An extra £100–200 a month from clothes gathering dust in a wardrobe? Yes please.
Environmental guilt
Fast fashion has become an uncomfortable topic. Secondhand selling offers a way to participate in fashion without contributing to the problem — and to earn something in the process. It is rare to find an activity that is both profitable and guilt-free. Vinting is approximately both.
Zero seller fees
Vinted charges sellers nothing. The buyer pays a small protection fee. For low-value items that barely justify a Royal Mail label, this makes Vinted far more attractive than eBay, which takes a percentage of everything. Simple economics made Vinted the default choice for casual sellers, which made it the dominant platform, which made its name the dominant verb.
Is Vinting the Same as Reselling?
Broadly yes, though the words carry different connotations. Reselling sounds deliberate and commercial — it implies buying with the specific intent to sell at a profit. Vinting sounds more domestic. Someone who’s vinting might be clearing out a wardrobe or it might be a serious side business. The word is admirably non-judgmental about scale.
In practice, people across the whole spectrum call it vinting: the person who lists two items a year during a January clear-out, and the person who sources charity shop finds every Saturday and turns over £1,500 a month. Both would describe what they do the same way.
How to Use “Vinting” Correctly
For those who prefer a usage guide with their etymology:
- Correct: “I’ve been vinting all weekend.”
- Correct: “She’s a proper vinter — clears £500 a month.”
- Correct: “I vinted my whole winter wardrobe before summer.”
- Correct: “Fancy a vinting session on Sunday?”
- Also correct but archaic: “The monks spent September vinting cherry wine in the cellar.”
- Technically defensible: “I’m vinting some vintage pieces.” (Three Latin roots, one sentence. Outstanding.)